MUFI Rating & Risk – FinancialForce

This software category is blessed to have two of the top scoring software vendors of all the software categories that we cover. This should easily defeat the flawed logic that one must purchase a complete ERP system rather than combining best of breed applications. Interestingly we have presented this argument frequently, and it is by people that have never compared the functionality in Intacct and FinancialForce to other uses. They are simply lazily relying upon the conventional wisdom that all companies must have ERP systems.

Application Detail

FinancialForce, like Rootstock (which we cover in our section on Software Selection Package for Small to Medium ERP), benefits from being part of the Force.com platform by Salesforce, which makes accessing and integrating to other Force.com applications extremely smooth. This means that FinancialForce can be brought up more quickly than almost any other stand-alone financial system of equivalent scope (FinancialForce is, of course, part of the Force.com platform, so calling it stand alone may seem to be an oxymoron. However, FinancialForce can be purchased separately from ERP modules.).

FinancialForce is very well regarded among accounting users. It is quite competent at managing sales as well as banking – the latter being a rarity in enterprise software. FinancialForce develops a strong word of mouth within companies, and as is the hallmark of a good application, once it comes into a company, it will frequently grow in usage. Unlike the financial applications in ERP systems, people that use FinancialForce finds that it makes their jobs much more comfortable – making user adoption straightforward.

FinancialForce is easy to use application, with reporting being a strong point. FinancialForce requires little user training. Support is also excellent. As with all Force.com platform products, FinancialForce is a cloud-based solution. Some companies are reticent to use cloud-based financial applications, however, with the excellent customer feedback on both FinancialForce and Intacct, and the general frustration with the financial systems provided by many ERP systems, many companies, should at least evaluate these applications to see what they are missing.

We grade FinancialForce as more appropriate for mid-sized companies – and of course is an excellent fit for companies seeking to use any other applications in the Force.com platform. FinancialForce is entirely built on the Salesforce platform, so while it could be used for companies that do not use any other Force.com applications its value would decline. A natural choice for FinancialForce customers would be Rootstock – our number one choice for mid-market non-process industry companies — and together this would provide a complete ERP solution, and at one of the lowest TCO values. If a company were to combine FinancialForce, Salesforce, and Rootstock, this would take care of many of the requirements of a company and could be brought up quickly.

As should be obvious we are very high on both Intacct and FinancialForce, and it’s difficult to go wrong with either one of the applications. Many companies that could benefit from switching to Intacct and FinancialForce are stuck using dated ERP financial systems because of their legacy ERP investments.

MUFI Scores

All scores out of a possible 10.

Vendor and Application Risk

Buyers of FinancialForce have every possible advantage working their direction. FinancialForce is one of the highest rated applications we have ever rated. It is a rare situation where a buyer has the opportunity to purchase software that is both the functionality leader in its category, along with being highly implementable and user-friendly.

Likelihood of Implementation Success

Risk Definition

Risk Management Approach

The only implementation issues that a buyer of FinancialForce can expect to the fact are the traditional issues that face financial/accounting projects. FinancialForce has tended to be implemented by smaller companies – the only reason being they do not have the brand recognition of being associated with a major software vendor. As such they have become acclimated to having their software implemented in clients with quite limited resources. We predict FinancialForce will eventually be more widely recognized for its excellent software and will become a significantly more prominent company and will be implemented by larger buyers, buyers with much more resources. A FinancialForce implementation is one that any project manager should look forward to, as it has a high likelihood of adding significant value to the buyer.

How it Works

Fill out the form below for a your customized TCO calculation, as well as each of the supporting cost components that make up the TCO. The form does not have a “beginning or end.” The form is constantly calculating, so feel free to make constant changes and the application will auto-adjust.

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How it Works

Fill out the form below for your project planning estimate. The form does not have a “beginning or end.” The form is constantly calculating, so feel free to make constant changes and the application will auto-adjust.

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References

Risk Book

Better Managing Software Risk

The software implementation is risky business and success is not a certainty. But you can reduce risk with the strategies in this book. Undertaking software selection and implementation without approximating the project’s risk is a poor way to make decisions about either projects or software. But that’s the way many companies do business, even though 50 percent of IT implementations are deemed failures.

Finding What Works and What Doesn’t

In this book, you will review the strategies commonly used by most companies for mitigating software project risk–and learn why these plans don’t work–and then acquire practical and realistic strategies that will help you to maximize success on your software implementation.

Introduction

Similar to Intacct, FinancialForce has a stellar word of mouth among its employees, boding well for both implement ability and support. This enables the company to have the output per employee that is quite impressive.

Quality of Information Provided

In terms of the sales force, we cannot find examples of the sales team overpromising – something which is a constant problem in enterprise software. At this point, FinancialForce has more opportunities than it can execute upon, so the likelihood of getting accurate information from sales at FinancialForce is far higher than companies that are scraping for new sales.

Consulting and Support

FinancialForce is well-rated for both consulting and support. Our only concern is that FinancialForce’s opportunities are so great that if a sizable number of new customers were to sign up for FinancialForce, it’s easy to see how the company could become overwhelmed.

Internal Efficiency

Because FinancialForce has little hierarchy, and excellent management, as well as a highly motivated workforce, its productivity is quite high. And they can leverage the combined knowledge internally quite effectively because it is not just the executives who get to make the input to decisions.

Part of the Following Software Categories

The Necessity of Fact Checking

We ask a question that anyone working in enterprise software should ask.

Should decisions be made based on sales information from 100% financially biased parties like consulting firms, IT analysts, and vendors to companies that do not specialize in fact-checking?

If the answer is “No,” then perhaps there should be a change to the present approach to IT decision making.

In a market where inaccurate information is commonplace, our conclusion from our research is that software project problems and failures correlate to a lack of fact checking of the claims made by vendors and consulting firms. If you are worried that you don’t have the real story from your current sources, we offer the solution.